


sleepsong

by Huppupbup (Nammish)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1511693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nammish/pseuds/Huppupbup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is Pitch Black: a creature of darkness and nightmares, a manipulator of the human condition, a deposed king of fear. Trapped and alone within the confines of Burgess, given company only by the remains of his treacherous army, his footsteps haunted by the light of the Moon and his failure to destroy the children of the world...Pitch finds unexpected solace in the form of a mortal woman offering an umbrella, conversation, and coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't talk to strangers

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the Rise of the Guardians kink/prompt meme, the original can be found [here](http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/1511.html?thread=806631).

There was a circle of light in the storm clouds above him.

It never left, even as he scurried under the usually welcome cover of night. The discomforting glow of the moonlight poured down, constant and bright and nearly liquid as it drifted along the pavement. Under it, every corner of the street was drawn into gentle curves, softened to the point of being ethereal. While it was not as well-lit as in daylight, tonight there were only soft, grayed-out shadows that lingered on the kind edge of true darkness. Where the light was not, a steady roll of thunder and sheets upon sheets of rain dwelt in its place. And that was infinitely worse.

It seemed the only dry, dark space left in all the world was one shabby nook that lay wedged between two ill-kept buildings. The irregular bricks on either side left the alley irregular and there were sharp stones lodged about in the shallow plaster holding the walls together, which poked and prodded in all of the wrong places. Its saving grace was an overhang made by the window canopy above. This bathed the area beneath in shade and kept out all but the most determined drops of water.

It was here that Pitch Black lurked.

Not an especially impressive lurk either. He was too cramped and too weakened and far, far too dismal. Were he to be seen by a particularly callous observer, his attempts would have rated only barely more than a petulant sulk. Pitch was a master at lurking when he had the time to put forth an effort...and the space, for that too was important. It was nearly impossible for most to both loom and lurk simultaneously, but the Nightmare King had become an expert in such activities.

Here, however, he was being forced to squat.

There were no doors, no windows open to the boogeyman—at least none that he cared to enter. The children of the town had not forgotten him entirely, but the shreds of fear that fed him now were hardly enough to sate. They were dull, lifeless whispers with no imagination. No sustenance. His plight was akin to a starving man being fed on dust. Would they do well in school tomorrow, would they manage to be first to the swings during playtime, would there be a meal they liked to eat in the coming days; noisy, meaningless, and highly unsatisfactory. Burgess was closed to him, and what frightened children lay beyond its city limits seemed an entire sky's span away.

He would have left, after crawling on hands and knees from the remnants of his home...but for his diminished powers, his waning health...

And the moonlight.

The watchful eye of the Man In The Moon was shaded only by the odd passing wisp of cloud and the rain as it moved overhead. An easy escape route, some would think, what with the dark and the dank that came with rain. Pitch had tried several times already. In his weakened state, the raindrops burned and drove him back, bringing forth long trails of steam wherever they came in contact. Water _cleansed_ , and in his current state, Pitch was little more than a bad dream being washed away by a cold splash of reality. When the night came and his old _friend_ took to the sky, there was no hiding from the way the unblinking gaze moved over the town. The Guardians were faster, stronger, and he was greatly outnumbered. Worst of all, he was trapped and all of them knew it. When the sun came, it would beat him into submission with heat and light that itched and hurt, dwindling down his shadows and his power by every second. When the moon rose, he would be found should he try to feed, or flee, and if he did not crawl under the ground to hide on his own, he would be thrown back within the span of a single night.

Suppose he waited then, for the moon to go dark and be unable to spy on his escapades? The Guardians were twice as weary then. Giant stone eggs, yetis, numerous fairies, the occasional strain of sand or ice...these guarded the furthest limits of his expansive, well-populated prison with no thought for rest. To fight meant that he would be overwhelmed, and to flee only delayed the chase. And where they weren't...

Pitch folded himself more tightly into his crevice, and did not dwell on blazing-red eyes and razor-sharp hooves.

He was the master of fear, of monsters and darkness. Of the unknown horrors from which children fled and pointed their terrified, grubby little fingers at. He was the thing that went bump in the night incarnate.

He was _not_ afraid.

He...

He was tired, hungry, and restless, but it had nothing to do with the echoes of his own screams that still clouded his thoughts. Nor with the headaches, the blinding pain that started somewhere behind his eyes and spread to even the most distant reach of him. Something dulled by age, now made fresh by the Night Mares and their tireless hunt for him—Pitch had felt it often skirting the edges of his memories over the many years, but efforts to grasp even a fraction of it yielded only an intense feeling of _panic_ , of the knowledge that the very worst had come, his own greatest fear, something more terrible than even the thought of dying, _he would do anything if it were not true_ —

The king of nightmares shivered, and though he most certainly did not stoop to cowering in a tiny alley...it was remarkable how close he came to it. By his reasoning, the hunch in his posture had more to do with the wind beginning to pick up, and a figure stumbling into view.

A human. One of average enough height, though Pitch was naturally prone to dwarfing the majority of mortals should he come across them. This one—a woman if the knee-length skirt clinging to her legs was anything to judge on, and in the long span of his lifetime Pitch had well-learned that it was not—had huddled down beneath the bright yellow spread of an umbrella, and was clutching a plastic bag close to her chest as each step fought against the rain's merciless onslaught. Every so often, the umbrella would tilt against the wind as the storm's direction changed. It wasn't until the human stumbled into the street, and looked up in surprise at the sudden absence of rain amid the Moon's light, that he caught a good look at her.

She had brown-to-black hair that was completely soaked, much like the rest of her. It clung to the roundness of her cheeks in unflattering clumps. Her face was red and bitten with the cold of a chilly, wet spring, and her eyes squinted down as she peered about. When she finally blinked them open, shielding them from the still present winds, he saw that they were brown as well, and a rather dull shade of it at that. Her mouth was bent in a line of deep concentration, and she seemed to be debating whether she should lower her umbrella or soldier on through the rain. The black of her heavy coat was positively glowing with beads of water as they caught the moonlight, blending into the black of her skirt, the dark tan of her stockings, and down into a pair of flat heeled shoes that would have been sensible if it hadn't been pouring.

Pitch snorted. Any moment now some slovenly man was bound to appear in a most cliché fashion and go sweeping her off into some tacky whirlwind romance. He cast a disapproving eye up into the heavens, and sneered. Honestly, what madness was this?

No man appeared, and the circle of moonlight drifted on with the storm. The woman, coming to some quiet conclusion of her own, reopened her umbrella and stepped back into the downpour. She crossed the remaining bit of the street and turned along the sidewalk to pass him. Finding himself grandly disinterested, he shuffled just enough to make himself as close to comfortable as the nook would permit, and made himself ready to suffer the night.

In that exact moment, the toe of her shoe met with some imperfection in the sidewalk and she went stumbling forward.

_Ah,_  Pitch thought, preparing to be disgusted.  _Now there will be the heroic reveal._

There was not. She caught herself with one hand slamming into the pavement before her face did, though it was with some difficulty. The motion sacrificed her death-grip on her bag, and several of the items inside went tumbling out onto the pavement. A bottle of what appeared to be cold medicine went rolling along the grain of the concrete, and came to a stop in the wedge between two slabs, directly in front of his hiding place.

Pitch seethed.

This was becoming tiresome.

The woman righted herself with a touch of unladylike vocabulary. It might have startled someone who was not so old as Pitch Black. Without looking, she stuck her hand—a mess of scrapes and light welling of blood—out into the rush of weather beyond her umbrella's edge so that it could be washed clean. As the rain dragged the dirt and blood from her skin, she began to pick her path over the walkway, recovering her lost purchases as she went. The cold medicine was last, and Pitch was hardly surprised that her eyes managed to fall on the space between the two buildings she stood before.

Pitch, not in the mood to even silently humor himself with the notion that she was doing more than peering into a particularly deep shadow, shifted so that he could turn his back. A small dip in the canopy above was startled, and water fell from it, splashing into the back of his neck so that he hissed at the cold fire of it. The skin would be bright and tender for hours to come.

“It's raining.”

Wonders never ceased. It was obvious now, he realized, as it had never been: it was not that children lost belief once they reached adulthood, but that they stifled it with sheer ineptitude by standing about and  _stating the obvious_. Because he was in a sour mood—and perhaps credit could be given to a choice brand of masochism buried somewhere deep in his psyche—the dark spirit muttered in reply:

“I hadn't noticed.”

There was a quiet sound of heels scraping across the wet ground, pebbles being sent tumbling by footsteps, and Pitch glared at the bricks and mortar in his vision with all of the intensity he could muster. 

“I said,” She spoke clearer now, and the thud of rain on her umbrella grew louder. “It's raining.”

More than anything, Pitch wanted something to lash at. And though he knew he wouldn't be proud, and that he would look a grand fool should Manny's gaze turn down this street again, he spun on heel.

“And  _I_  said—” His words faltered, for as he began to speak, she had taken two steps back in haste, and one arm was already extended, holding a tiny bottle on a ring of keys out in front of her. He'd seen such a thing before, several times, and had little fear of them generally. He was an immortal, and a bit of spray was hardly going to do much—about as much as a snowball might. ...though considering his latest defeat, perhaps that was a poor comparison. “..I...hadn't...”

No, what startled him more than anything was that said little bottle was aimed directly at nose level with him, and the proximity left little room for error. She was aiming this useless bit of technology at him, the entirety of her body poised in a fashion that should she think she had to use it, she would and that she would take off in a sprint soon after. He quickly glanced over his shoulder, for a rat or a spider, or something that might have frightened her.

“If you're waiting for the bus,” She let every syllable come out slowly, as if tasting the situation. One foot slid back to let her take another step away—all caution and eyes trained...

...directly...

...on...

“Then it's been canceled.” She finished, a solid span of four feet between them now. “Because it's raining.”

“Yes.” Pitch tried to keep his voice as calm as he could, but there was the beginnings of a waver. He hated himself for it. “I believe...” The word made his mouth go dry. “...I think we've established that. ...That it's raining.”

She didn't smile, but then, neither did he. Pitch wasn't even sure if what he'd said might constitute as a joke. He was preoccupied with not choking on the words. Everything seemed muted, but simultaneously it was loud, and bright, and every detail was branding itself onto his mind. The tiny run beginning at the knee of her left stocking, the way her knees were still slightly bent, her coat buttons all done one off, as she had missed the one closest to her throat. He could almost feel the buzz of her human brain, racing with its own brand of fear for every moment. Right now, the greatest of them were centered on him, and his next move.

She could  _see_  him.

“Forgive me for startling you.” The words flowed smoothly, though he wasn't sure why they came at all. It seemed appropriate. And, he added as an afterthought, if she was able to hear him and see him, then perhaps that little bottle was indeed something to be feared. “It has been...a long night.”

She relaxed, but only enough to lower her weapon. Pitch took appreciative note that the keys remained securely in her hand. Her tight hold on them was drawing the blood from the cuts on her palm, but she didn't seem to notice it trickling down between her fingers.

“I have a spare.”

“...pardon?”

She had already tucked the bag under her arm, and her own umbrella was hooked by the angle of her chin. The hand palming her keys remained unoccupied at her side while the other dug into her coat pocket. After a moment, she fished out a small cylinder of black cloth, and he recognized it as another umbrella, in a portable mode. Her arm extended as far as she seemed to dare, offering it as once might a sacrifice to placate an ancient god.

“A spare.” She repeated, staring more at the umbrella than him. Pitch was used to others avoiding eye contact. People didn't look you in the eye when they couldn't see you. “The store two streets over is open. You can wait the storm out inside.”

He blinked.

The umbrella swayed ever so slightly, and she fingered the keys in a manner he could only describe as nervous. He tried not to let his eyes slip closed as the feeling sank in, pooling somewhere in his center much like a hot broth. It wasn't the fear of children, but it wasn't the hollow tastelessness he'd been enduring. He moved to take the donated umbrella from her as gently as possible, careful to let his nails scrape over her skin. There was already gooseflesh and clamminess from the wet and the cold, but the spike of her discomfort was nearly tangible.

She drew back quickly, and he was startled for the second time by how the distance wrenched at him. Something deep urged him to follow, the instinctive need to pacify his hunger pains. His reigned in his primal nature; it would not do to draw the Guardians down upon him by being foolhardy. Adults, when they screamed, were much louder than children. And they knew what words would bring help.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She was already hurrying out of reach, umbrella held in close as if she meant to shield herself with it. The yellow of it was quickly lost to the dreariness of the rain, and when she turned the corner further down the street, she disappeared altogether.

For a long moment, Pitch looked after, mulling along the lingering taste of her fear of him, the way her eyes had not looked past his shape, the feel of skin and the thrum of a heartbeat racing beneath his fingertips. The pull of an immortal toward any that believed was nearly irresistible, but he remained where he was. There was not enough of the night left to go chasing down some unknown human, with nothing to go on beside her fear of a stranger in the dark.

Then he opened the umbrella, and found that he was much more grateful for it than for the pretense of a meal.

 


	2. the hole you impose upon your life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dark, in the rain, the bogeyman again crosses paths with a mortal woman with the ability to see him when it seems no one else may. It would irritate Pitch were it not for...no. There is no possible exception. He is most certainly irritated.

In the hours to come, the rain allowed no view of the sunrise. The clouds were not quite so oppressive as they had been the night before, but the sky hovered low and threatening nonetheless. By noon, it became obvious that the weather had little intention of departing completely. Rather than the constant downpour that Pitch Black had been forced to hide from earlier, there were cloudbursts that kept the air and streets damp, and the wind chill.  _ April showers _ , the humans murmured as they scurried by—many expressed gratitude that at least it was no longer cold enough to snow. Pitch found himself in agreement. The newest Guardian moving on was indeed something to be thankful for.   
  
Beneath the umbrella, he prowled the roads of Burgess in a haphazard fashion. The first place he went, almost on instinct, was the previous location of the bed. The rotten frame had long served as the entrance to his world of shadows. It was gone now, but that was to be expected.  
  
He could have opened it again. Within that world—demeaning as it was to go skulking underneath beds and stairs and behind closet doors—he could feed on a world's fear. Not so potent as direct contact with nightmares, with children who believed and saw and knew the darkness for what it was...but it was a way to continue existence. He could melt into the embrace of formless thought for a time, as he had done before, and recover.  
  
Then a shadow passed between the trees. The sound of wind cutting through the naked branches. He might have imagined the heavy snort of a creature that did not need to breathe. Nevertheless, Pitch drew away again. Better to not risk any confrontation while he was still recovering. He knew better than any what lay in the shadows, and he had trapped the majority of them below. They could not wisp through the world's many stretches of darkness without him. The ones still roaming the outside were more than enough to deal with at the present. He would fight them down again when he was better apt to handle their numbers.  
  
Burgess would have to do. For now.  
  
Turning back to the town was...difficult. His pride was wounded, and it was one of the few things which had sustained him throughout the many centuries. His rightful place as king over every silent horror, every sudden jerk into consciousness, every cold sweat. Pitch Black had once been something unnamed but known to every man, woman, and child. Now he was beginning to unravel, and all that was left to him was...this.  
  
Pitch Black would return.  
  
He squared his shoulders at that, at the image of the Guardians cowering down before him. The gesture gave him comfort. Their faces when they realized that they could never be free of him, that they had no place to run. Pitch was in everything, was everywhere. They might confine him for now, but he would fall upon them as the very night, wiser and greater and crueler than ever before. He would snuff out every light, every believing child, and this time there would be no last sudden Guardian to strike him down.  
  
From this moment on, there would be no neutral parties.  
  
 _ Yes _ , he thought, basking in the beauty of his revenge fantasy. There would be no mercy. No escape. They would each fall to their greatest nightmares; he would seek them out one by one and they would never see him coming so soon after they had thought him crushed. Each would fall to their knees for their very existence, in the very manner they sought to make him grovel. There would be nothing left of them but books and whispers...and then, nothing at all.   
  
A grand declaration, Pitch found.  
  
One that was made far less grand from the shelter provided by a human's pocket umbrella.  
  
If he had held out against the encroaching bitterness of reality, he might have missed the droplets warning him of another impending rain. The sky had long since darkened, though the hour was hardly late, and Pitch hissed in what was certainly not a rising sense of panic. The umbrella bobbed above him, tugged at by the wind that was gaining speed and beginning to howl overhead. As he rejoined the scattered crowds on the sidewalks, he heard voices in conference lamenting the chances of freezing rain.  
  
 _ Of course. Diligent as always then _ , Pitch scowled.   
  
He ducked into the nearest back street, seeking to avoid having to step around the humans as they bustled. There would be more of them any minute, rushing from their houses and buildings to hurry about some mortal business before the rain fell again. He located a well-shaded corner near a fire escape, and made for it. Better to find an out of the way place to spend the night. With any luck, he would not have to remain on guard for the whole of it.  
  
The umbrella shuddered, rattled by the breaking of some cosmic dam and the sky finally let loose the wave of water down onto the city. In the distance, Pitch could just make out the break in the clouds that was flooded in by waning daylight. The corner of his mouth twitched into a rather smug curl, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of having outsmarted the great and all-knowing Man in the Moon during the night prior. Secure in the knowledge that he was safe for a time from the rain and detection, Pitch settled back against the cool stone of the building and allowed himself to doze.  
  
He heard the ring of rushing air over metal before anything else, but that was enough. One eye opened to the world, dragging the rest of his psyche in its wake, and Pitch groaned as he tried to sort himself back into a proper shape. Limbs bent and cracked in their own, unnatural way—they had gone stiff as he curled in on himself. The rain had become something closer to a wet sleet. From his nook, the street was lit in warm light from the tall lamps that lined the pavement, every frigid droplet coming alive in gold and silver whenever they fell near.  
  
He shrank back into the shelter offered by the alley's fire escape. The umbrella would protect him from the general elements, but he could not vouch for its ability to deter the plummeting temperature. There would likely be snow the following morning, and with it would come Jack Frost plowing through the town and causing trouble and snow days.  
  
The sound of metal clattering in the cold wind came again followed by muffled footsteps, and Pitch's gaze rose in time to see his privacy being encroached upon. A yellow umbrella caught in the wind came barreling into the alleyway, just managing to clear an old metal trash can before it was turned inside out when the handle caught the lip of a dumpster. It was followed by a shivering figure that he recognized immediately, though she was significantly more bundled this evening. A heavy, knitted scarf striped in blues and violets was wrapped around her collar and a dark hat hid the majority of her head, allowing only the wet ends of her hair to show. She trudged through the mud and trash of the alley in a grand hurry to catch up with her lost umbrella. Little wonder, with the rainfall all but coming down sideways at that point. As soon as she moved to free it from the dumpster, the handle came loose on its own and blew about the alley, leading her on a rather merry chase toward the back street on the opposite side. She hustled after, and after a moment's hesitation, Pitch followed.  
  
Only for curiosity's sake.  
  
The back street was lined with the rear end of buildings on both sides, and dusted with ice and pools of water that he was forced to dodge. The woman had crouched in an unsteady way to dislodge the umbrella from a sewer drain just off the pavement. Her bare hands continually dodged in and out of the rush of water, already turning pale from the cold.  
  
Few things were as silent as the footsteps of darkness. She did not realize he was behind her until his shadow fell in her path, drawn out by the streetlight at his back. Small as she was, the woman wasted no time and jumped as if to flee, but did not manage to gain her feet. Hardly thinking he was close enough to do anything to stop her fall, Pitch Black reached out and was startled by her grasping hold of his wrist to regain her balance. There was a wobble, and he allowed himself to be used as her anchor just long enough to stand properly. The caught umbrella gave a shudder and bent closed just enough before the pull of the water yanked it down and it disappeared into the drain.  
  
“ Dammit!”   
  
Charming. Really.  
  
She leaned forward, trying to peer after her lost property. Her hat had gone askew during her near tumble, and her hair was drenched, as was the rest of her attire, and she was shivering.  
  
“ Well.” She straightened, taking that moment to edge to the side and give them both more room. Her discomfort had replaced any hope of retrieving the umbrella. To his displeasure, she was not radiating the same fear of the unknown that she had been the night before. Perhaps the earlier hour was to blame for it. “That's all there is for it, then.”   
  
Her hands, still pale and bare and now taking on a faint tint of blue, moved to adjust her hat and the collar of her coat, and to retie the scarf so that the wind could not longer turn her cheeks into stung patches of red. Pitch remained silent for the strange ritual of it, surprised at his own mix of fascination at how she could have resolved her previous caution in his presence so quickly and annoyance that he was being ignored in favor of  _ grooming _ .   
  
As if she had heard his very thoughts: “You're out again.”  
  
She had turned her face just enough to watch him out of the corner of one eye. He did not have to tilt the edge of the umbrella far to better his view of her, but he did it anyway. Pants this time, and far better suited to the cold. She was learning.  
  
Not very fast, mind. It was still a remarkably unintelligent thing to say.  
  
“ So I am.”   
  
“ In the rain.”   
  
“ Yes.”   
  
He waited for her to speak again, and when she made no gesture as if to continue the conversation, he glanced back over his shoulder toward the alley and the small patch of dryness beneath the stairs. The trickles of water and rain pooling about their feet were not so harsh as what fell from the sky, for the puddles formed were sullied with whatever the rainwater hit when coming in contact with the dirt and filth. It still itched against him, like sandpaper dragging across a barely healed scar. He didn't care for it, and the woman was hardly conducive to his getting back into shelter.  
  
She wrung her hands together for a moment, visibly unsure. Deciding he'd endured enough for now, and that she'd been more than repaid for the umbrella, he moved back toward the alley.  
  
Only to hear a sudden yelp.  
  
A small, pebble-like piece of ice hit the ground before him. Then another, and more followed in the wake of the second. The woman was obviously flinching about beneath the sudden addition to her troubles, and Pitch Black heaved the sigh of one unfairly burdened.  
  
“ This way.” He called back, heading for the alley and the safety it promised. Rapid steps behind him informed him that his suggestion—order, favor, whatever it was, it was foolish and he would regret it—was being complied with. The space he had been standing in before was not quite big enough for the both of them to stand without at least minimal contact, but he tilted the umbrella he possessed to accommodate her, and she pressed one shoulder only gently against his ribs. It was not ideal, but it was enough.   
  
“ Terrible weather.”   
  
Oh joy, thousands of years in existence and the entirety of it had been leading to this moment: he was going to speak with a human about the  _ weather _ .   
  
“ You're not here for the bus, I suppose.” She seemed to be making light of her previous assumptions, for there was an edge of dry humor to her tone. Pitch found he could not tell if she was laughing at him, herself, or their predicament. “Are you following me?”   
  
“ I beg your pardon?”   
  
If ever a spirit known for invading the sanctity of another being's mental privacy by simply existing had the ability to be affronted, the king of nightmares was just so in that moment.  
  
“ Why else would you be out in the rain?”   
  
Such arrogance.  
  
“ Reasons of my own.” He replied shortly, averting his gaze toward the clumps of ice bouncing across the pavement just as she cast a disapproving look up at him. The hail was growing in size. Above them, the fire escape clanged every time it was struck. “I should think the question would be more likely to be addressed to you.”   
  
“ Why's that?”   
  
She seemed genuinely interested, and it had been a long time since Pitch Black had someone to speak to who did not have to be bribed or battled.  
  
“ This is the second time you've gone stumbling into me.”   
  
“ Touché.” A fingernail came to tap at the side of her mouth, and she pursed her lips at the sky. “I suppose you're going to ask me then? What I'm doing out?”   
  
“ I assumed it was none of my business.”   
  
At that, she laughed. It was not the sort of idle twitter hidden by a hand that Pitch remembered as once being fashionable, nor was it the heavy, full-bodied laugh that he remembered being hurled in his face every time he fought the great St. North. This was a soft, warm sound that was free and open and entirely lacking in ridicule.   
  
Pitch was surprised in spite of himself.  
  
“ No.” She murmured, her voice gone slightly breathless. “No, I suppose not.”   
  
The words formed little clouds of mist when they left her still smiling mouth. It was foreign territory for him, to be faced with such a reaction after so long spent with his only acknowledgement being that of terror. There were no smiles to be given to the bogeyman.  
  
He focused on the rain and hail instead.  
  



End file.
